


Lost In Transit

by Hazurfurn



Series: Adventures of Fireteam Dumbass [1]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Fireteam Dumbass, Fireteam Dumbass living up to their name, Mad scientist Titan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29627001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hazurfurn/pseuds/Hazurfurn
Summary: "Fireteam Dumbass is a hop and a skip away from a restraining order from the Vanguard."Aurian and Shorn-5 of the infamous Fireteam Dumbass are called to respond to an SOS on a direlect Cabal ship floating in the middle of space.(Spoilers to the Presage if you have not done it yet)
Series: Adventures of Fireteam Dumbass [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2176833
Kudos: 3





	Lost In Transit

**Author's Note:**

> Fireteam Dumbass members: Aurian and Shorn-5 are called to respond to an SOS on the Glykol.

Go to a derelict Cabal ship they said. It’ll be fine they said, ‘Just investigate the SOS signal and bring the person back.’ they said. They did not mention the ship is drifting in an asteroid field surrounded by tendrils of darkness. Of course Vanguards choice was to call in Fireteam Dumbass, except their lead Hunter, Hoshi was nowhere to be found. No one expected only two members of Fireteam Dumbass: Aurian and Shorn-5 to be chosen to investigate the ship with only their wits and no offered backup. As soon as the two landed, they were immediately met with the feeling of uneasiness of being surrounded by the eternal abyss and flickering lights.

“Hey Shorn,” Aurian asked the moment they set foot on the open side entrance of the derelict Cabal spacecraft. Just looking at the dim hallways of the spacecraft sent shivers down her spine. The fireteam’s only present Hunter answered with a muffled grunt while they were still looking at the dark expanse of space. “Is it just me or do your Guardian senses say you have a bad feeling about this?”

“I’d say it's more of… intimidated. Something disabled my radar and half my scanners.” They offered no further explanation before turning around and walking forward into the dark halls. Aurian noticed their fingers tapping their gun handle, Shorn only did that when they were anxious or disturbed about a mission. This is most likely going to be one such situation. 

The two begin to walk through the halls of the darkened tunnel, Monte Carlo and grenade launcher raised as they round every corner. The moment they step foot into what seems to be a small generator room, the ship comes to life around them, strange growlings, gurglings, and sounds of chains being dragged echo around them. Both of the Guardians fall into a familiar battle-stance with Shorn standing just a little lower than Aurian, their eyes, and gun trailing the source of the noise. The deafening silence and flickering lights above did not help them out as it sounds like the noises are directly above them. 

Silence. It fades into silence much like the flickering lights.

For a titan and hunter with glowing armor- it did absolutely nothing against the darkness of the ship. In terms of navigating the dark corridors, she is relying on Shorn to lead the way. 

“Let’s keep moving, I don’t think staying still is a good idea in the corridors of this particular ship.” 

After breaking multiple vents and falling through said vents, it leads them into a room filled with strange plant-like beings growing around the walls and ceilings. They are green and red, seemingly swaying on their own. 

“What the hell is all of this…” Shorn hears Aurian breathe behind them as the Hunter walks up to one of them, letting their biometric scanner do its job of identifying the weird plant. Their vision floods with pillars of words and numbers and a few images- none of which they recognize and the results came back inconclusive. 

“I… don’t recognize these at all.” Shorn steps back and turns to see the white and blue Titan staring at what seems to be a glowing wall of something. They walk over to join her. “What is that?”

Aurian reaches out to touch the glowing field- only to recoil with a hiss when her hand makes contact. There is smoke coming from her palm, the edges glowing white embers where the armored glove contacted the wall. There is a faint crackle of their comms as Osiris’ voice enters their earpiece, but Shorn turns their volume low, choosing to focus on the weird wall before them. They can faintly make out his words of ‘ _no light beyond there_ ’ and some other things. 

Do they drain Light? Do they only affect Lightbearers?

Shorn raises a clawed hand and briefly glances over to see Aurian is looking at a strange growth on the wall with glowing balls. They hesitantly place their hand on the glowing wall, steeling their nerves for the incoming pain that awaits them. It did not. They only felt a slight tingle as their entire hand passed through the wall. Confused, Shorn brings their hand back towards them, examining it carefully- nothing is out of place, no smoke, or burn marks. 

It just felt warm.

“Hey Shorn, it looks like we need to shoot these weird glowing mushrooms so we can get those spore things to cross through.”

“... Please don’t shoot it with your grenade launcher.”

Luckily, Aurian did not shoot it with a grenade launcher and instead punched it until plumes of spores flew into their faces. The glowing field before them vanished, allowing them safe passage into the room before it went back up. Shorn cringed at the smell of death and must that assaulted their olfactory modules. It did not help to see four Cabal dead amongst the tangle of swaying plants, seemingly merged into the pulsating flesh, one of them dangling by the legs. Aurian wanders around the room while Shorn commences a deeper scan of the Cabal before them. Several more images and data fly into their field of vision, they were pleasantly surprised to see that Vanguard has given them access to the scientific database. With the combined databases, Shorn had nearly all scannable information at their disposal- much to The Praxic Order’s dismay, even more to a specific member of it. 

“Sarcophilous… flesh-takers,” Shorn concludes, taking a step back. “Hey Aurian, it looks like they only take the flesh of deceased individuals, you can take a few samples back to your lab.”

Aurian peeked around a crate and flashed a thumbs up at Shorn. They can see a specimen collecting box manifest into her hands. 

“Grab some for Hoshi before he comes back and yells at us for not getting any samples for him.” 

* * *

Their first real open space was just a few drops and turns. A crackling wall of electricity separated the room into three sections. As soon as they landed, their helmets could not filter the stench of rotting flesh and ozone with a hint of ether. They look around, their Sparks and Zion shining around to help them see better. Nothing seemed off so far- except the weird gurgling sounds coming from behind.

Well, except they shined the light on at least five Skrebs closing in on them. Aurian and Shorn fired back at them- but they did not explode as they would after a grenade or a few bullets- they just kept crawling closer. Shorn tosses a stasis grenade to give them a bit of space, the blue dome pulled most of the skrebs into it and froze them over. Aurian finishes them off with a well-aimed grenade canister, and they explode in a violent chain reaction of flying crystals, ether, and chunks of flesh around the room.

“... Those are not normal skrebs.” Aurian wipes the blood and guts from her faceplate. “It shouldn’t take two grenade canisters, an entire ammo clip, and a stasis field to kill a few.” 

Shorn wipes blood from their visor, flicking a few flecks of tainted ether to the side, “I don’t know about you but my hunter senses are tingling.” 

The deeper they got, the worse the ‘vegetation’ spread, even worse, there was Scorn present on the ship and they were braver with their ambushes by spawning Skrebs around almost every corner. Not to mention they barely survived being crushed in a trash compactor. Why is a lever in the trash compactor? Then they barely survived an ambush from the Scorn. Not to mention they were stronger than the Scorn they previously encountered before in patrols, strikes, or even on the Tangled Shore. And the moment they walked out onto one of the Glykol’s hangars, they walked into an even bigger welcome party.

The hangar was at the mercy of the openness of space, and so was every noise around them. Waves of Scorn fired at them, pinning them behind crates, barely able to peek their heads without the risk of losing it. A void grenade detonates beside Shorn while they scan their targets for an opening.

“I’m going to draw their attention, you take out the bottom with your grenade launcher and I’ll handle the top.” Shorn ducks back under the crate as an explosion of arc flies around them. 

Aurian peeks out afterward, taking note of the two clusters of Scorn below the top platform. The clustered Scorn at the bottom can be easily taken care of by a few well-placed grenade canisters.

“Got it.” She gives the hunter a nod. 

Shorn jumps out first, barely missing the void saws that grazed their armor. They fired back with two shurikens, easily taking out the few raiders perched above. Aurian slides out after, firing off the first round, watching the canister detonate on the Captain, the explosion easily taking care of the surrounding lurkers. She quickly reloaded and threw up a barrier as a round ricocheted off her pauldron. She takes aim and fires, watching the canister detonate the fuel pods and send the bodies flying into the air. The Titan looks up to see Shorn dispatching the last captain with a knife to the throat and gives her a thumbs up. 

Light fills the back of the hangar. Shorn jumps off the platform to rejoin Aurian as she readies another barrier to be thrown up. To their horror, two abominations manifest alongside at least twenty ravagers with flaming flails lumbering directly at them. They give one knowing another a glance before giving a battle cry and run head-on to meet them head-on. Shorn leaps into the air, the chill aura of stasis permeating the hangar as they throw their kamas at the incoming Scorn, freezing them all into place as Aurian follows up by conjuring the energies of the Void into a shield on her arm. With one practiced throw partnered with the ice storm, they watch as most of the Scorn shatter upon impact, anything else is picked off by Shorn’s sword and Aurian’s fist. 

As the last of the Scorn shattered, the hangar fell silent again. They let the few seconds pass before lowering their weapons to catch their breath. If they were not in a hurry to rescue a Guardian or on any mission, they would not mind just staying at the hangar for a moment longer to gaze upon the infinite darkness of space. But sadly, they had to continue. Shorn leads them to jump on the platforms outside the hangar to access another. For the briefest moment they were out in space, they felt small against the asteroids and space itself, there is no end to it. Nothing but a speck in the cosmos. 

As soon as the two of them touched the ground of the smaller hangar, they felt a crushing wave of something slam against them. Aurian visibly flinched.

“ _Go be you Guardian… the stray variable._ ” 

“Do you hear that?” Shorn’s head perked up, moving as if they were trying to locate the source of the noise. Aurian met the Hunters’ gaze with a nod.

“I heard something,” She confirms, “It sounded like Sagira.” 

“Sagira? I heard Uldren Sov.” Shorn says with a head tilt. Aurian furrows her brow under her helmet, Sagira has been dead for a while and technically Uldren is dead too. 

“Wait wait wait,” Aurian holds a hand up, “Shorn- you realize the voices they belong to are dead.”

“I am very well aware of that.” Shorn replies monotony. “I was there when Hoshi killed Uldren.”

“And you’re not bothered by hearing a dead man's voice?” Aurian asks. 

“The Pyramid has done something like this before,” Shorn looks at the oil stains on the ground that leads to a locked door to their right. It looks like something was dragged into it. Their eyes flicker to the opening high above them. “We shouldn’t stay still here, we need to go.” 

* * *

Aurian can see the Hunter’s growing frustration with every encounter of Scorn in the puzzle rooms. They weren’t like other Scorns at all. She fully expected the ship to be a puzzle, but the overrunning vegetation made it damn near impossible to navigate properly. The lack of Light here is also making it difficult to fight, she finds herself not being able to take as much damage as she would normally. The air is thick with mold and those weird spores and despite the best filter the Vanguard can offer, she still feels like choking with every breath. Her knees are sore from all the crouching and crawling through the vents. She swears she heard Ghaul’s voice earlier when they entered another section of the ship, and by seeing how Shorn stiffened up, they heard something too. As much as both of them would like to stay and conduct their own investigations- they had a more pressing matter on their hands.

The jumping and falling and running through glowing walls eventually led them to a room bathed in soft blue light. Judging from the generators lining the floors and walls around them, it looked like the boiler room of a ship. It was slightly foggy, but it didn't help the shiver going down their spines. Something is on their radar, but they can’t physically see it. It definitely did not help to see a large plume of smoke and a huge Scorn lumbering out of it towards them, two eyes glowing in the darkness as it dragged flaming flails behind it.

Both of their radars scan the lumbering titan as the Locus of Communion. 

It gives off a roar, a chorus of voices emanating from its throat, sending vibrations throughout the room. They wasted no time splitting into their preferred battle-stances and opened fire at their target while trying to avoid the multiple flails and flames aimed in their directions. Multiple well-aimed grenades and bullets later, the room began to glow orange and the boss vanished into thin air. 

The room begins to feel hot. Unbearably hot.

“Pull the levers!” Shorn shouts as they bound to the other side of the room, pulling the level above the console. Aurian follows soon after with the closest to her, before watching Shorn sprint to the third console in the middle of the room. She can smell the intrusion of ozone through her helmet filters and out of the corner of her eyes she can see electric sparks fly followed by a familiar shrieking sound of something being spawned. 

More Scorn. 

Aurian fires her grenade launcher at the handful of Scorns trailing the Hunter in the boiler room as they pull the final lever down and flood the room with coolant, bringing the temperature of the room down to bearable levels. She looks down between the slats of the platform and she can see the large form of the Scorn right walking underneath her feet.

“It’s right below us!” She shouts to Shorn. The hunter immediately jumps down the open sides followed by the titan. It was even foggier below the platform from the coolant flooding the overheating boilers, the only indication of where their opponent is the glowing eyes and flaming flails. They resumed their assault on the Locus while leaping back onto the topside platform whenever it swung the flails or got too close to them. 

After a few minutes, the room turns orange and heat floods the lower levels. Shorn is shouting about enemies spawning on topside earlier and had already headed up to clear the enemies, leaving Aurian to land in the last few hits before the heat becomes unbearable. It looks to be another repeat of earlier; clear the mobs and flood the boiler with coolant before they jump back down to attack the boss with everything they got.

“Behind you!” She hears Shorn yell through the thick glass wall. She just finished caving in the head of a lurker before she whipped around to see a raider with a fully charged rifle firing at her backside. She moved but not enough as the bolt of purple energy slammed into her side. The impact stung, but she clenched her jaw and raised her grenade launcher, and sent the raider away in a shower of dark ether, flesh and bone. She looks down to inspect the injury; it is a lucky shot that stuck the thinner, flexible part of her armor. It’s bleeding, but it doesn’t look like it’s deep enough for major concerns. 

“The boss is by your side!” Shorn calls out to her. The two waste no time jumping down to the lower level again and assault it while dodging the flail, the trail of fire following said flails and the Captains that spawned.

A well-aimed grenade explosion and a shuriken brought the boss to its knees. Taking the moment of weakness, Aurian reaches for her Light and calls forth the surge of void energies, harnessing it into a form of a round shield on her right arm. She charges at the Locus, arm cocked back with the intention of bashing with the lip of her shield. Aurian’s shield-wielding fist slams into the face of the abomination, sending it staggering back to Shorn who lunged forward with Falling Guillotine, dragging the blade behind its left knee, forcing it to kneel to their onslaught before giving an uppercut to the back of its neck. Aurian sprints forward to deliver another punch to its head, but the Scorn twisted its torso, bringing a well-aimed fist into the side of her helmet, snapping her head to the side with a loud crack. The blow sent stars exploding into her vision followed by a few seconds of darkness. It sent her flying to the side a good few yards before it swung back around and swung their flail at Shorn who dodged the majority of the flails- except one of it collided with their leg, the spiked cauldron nearly ripped their lower leg off at the knee when it forced the Hunter to the ground. 

Shorn inwardly cursed as they felt the flaming metal shred their left leg, a warning flashed on their visor followed by a full-body scan that showed their lower left leg was highlighted as damaged along with an extensive list of what was damaged. They can still move the leg, but Shorn can see sparks and alkahest coming from the site of impact. They looked around to see the Titan on the opposite side of them, slowly pushing herself off the ground, her super still in use but its flickering. The large crack and dent to the side of her helmet and the staggering is concerning them. They need to end the fight soon if both of them were to walk out of the ship alive. Shorn lets the chill of Stasis flow through their veins, forming crystals across their body as they leap into the air, familiar kamas forming in their hands.

There is an intense ringing in Aurian’s ears, her vision slowly comes back with it. There is a definite crack running down the side of their helmet display and the world is tilting like a drunkard. Her stomach lurched when she forced herself up to her feet. She can still feel the coldness of the void encasing her body and her shield has yet to dissipate, but the flickering tells her it’s almost up. She looks over to see Shorn encasing themself in a layer of Stasis as they chuck their kamas at it, the first one creating a layer of frost over the Locus and the second sending an ice devil at it, and right as the two strike home, the Scorn made one last effort to throw the flail at Shorn before freezing over. Even mid-flail the impact sent the Hunter flying into the wall while they were shouting a string of colorful words. Aurian takes the chance to throw the last of her void shield at the Locus. The shield miraculously hits the coins Shorn gave it earlier. The Locus seizes up when more than half of the shield has cut into its neck. 

One step. Two steps and the Scorn falls to the ground. 

Shorn peels themself off the wall they were slammed into by the giant Scorn seconds ago, letting themselves fall face-down to the metal floor. A muffled groan comes from their voice box as locational damage is displayed into the corner of their vision while they push themselves up- at least half of it is blinking red. Taking one last glance to make sure the Scorn, they limp over and bring Falling Guillotine through its neck to make sure the thing is really dead. If beheading it doesn't kill it, they don’t know what else would do so. Shorn looks around for Aurian in the foggy room. They spot her kneeling on the opposite side, faint traces of void energy still wisping from her hand where the void shield was moments ago. They dragged their leg over to their friend, ignoring the warning text on their visor as their joints creaked and groaned. 

“Are you alright? You took a heavy hit to the head.” Shorn pulls Aurian back to her feet, they can feel their shoulder grinding in protest, the flail must've struck one of the motors. Out of habit, Shorn runs a scan on the Titan, the data showing a few signs of injuries, the nasty-looking injury to the lightly protected side of her chest plate still bled, but it is not deep enough to hit any major organs or blood vessels. However, Shorn frowned more at the damage running across the helmet, and remembering her unsteadiness earlier, concussion is at the top of their list. 

“The shot from the raider feels better compared to my head,” Aurian mentions, looking down to Shorn’s leg where the large flail caught the Exo earlier, eyeing the steady drip of alkahest coming from it. As far as she is aware of Shorn’s particular anatomy, that wall impact might have damaged something along their back. Knowing the Hunter personally, she knows they will downplay any indication of injuries to themselves. “Can _you_ walk is a better question?” 

“Says the one actually bleeding with a concussion.” Shorn scoffs, eying the growing stain on her side. They can hear their internal fans and actuators hiss and groan with strain as they straighten their back. “Slow, but maybe, the motors probably damaged.” 

“I can imagine.” Aurian exhales as they slowly make their way to the closest ledges to the top floor. 

“... I still don’t feel any access to Light here,” Aurian says while hovering back up to the top floor, the injury to her side is all but a dull, pulsating ache. Probably from the adrenaline. The entire place is dead silent, except for the faint hum of the coolant pumps around them. “It still feels creepy as hell.”

“I noticed, we’re not healing as we should be.” Shorn replies. Aurian shrugs, offering a hand to Shorn and pulling them back up to the topside. Leaning over the ledge to help Shorn sent a wave of nausea rolling in her stomach with a few moments of darkness at the corner of her vision.

“That did not feel good.” She groans with a hand to her head, trying to dull the pain. 

Shorn chuckles as they lean on the wall for support, “I’m going to punch Osiris because there were at least fifty more life forms he originally stated. ‘I see at least one other lifeform here with you.’ my ass.”

Auriain gives a bark of laughter, “Save a hit for me.” 

Shorn takes a step before their leg buckled under their weight. Warning signs flooding their vision annoyingly and Shorn blinks them away. Aurian, who saw that coming from a mile away- already reached out to keep the hunter from collapsing. “... Thanks.”

“I doubt either of us are up for walking right now.” She says as she slings Shorn’s arm across her shoulders. They leaned on one another for stability. “Speaking of which, I heard a door unlock somewhere when we killed that bastard.” 

Out of nowhere, Shorn speaks up. “I do have a question.”

“And that is?”

  
“Why is the coolant system fully operational? Better yet- why is it the only room that looks… clean?”

Aurian stays silent for a moment. “Maybe it’s more isolated? It’s a boiler room, and maybe it prevents spores from growing? I don’t see air vents anywhere.”

They looked around for a door and spotted one to their right with green lights above it. Thankfully that walk is not too far and the two of them managed to slowly make their way through the door, pausing every few steps to gather themselves. 

A faint static filled their ears when they entered the hallway, soon enough Osiris’ voice filled their comms, “ _\- of Fireteam Dumbass on the Glykol hear me? I repeat, do any members of Fireteam Dumbass hear me?_ ” 

They pause their steps and glance at one another. Neither of them noticed their comms were down at all earlier. Shorn speaks up first. “We hear you.”

They can almost hear a sigh of relief on the other end.

“ _That’s a relief, you went dark about three hours ago and Zavala was afraid of having to break the news to Hoshi and your clan. What is your status?_ ”

“The Glykon is severely overrun with plants attuned to Darkness, heavy Scorn presence that are unlike those encountered on the Tangled Shore or anywhere in the system,” Aurian reports, 

“We are alive, but sustained injuries during the encounter with a large Scorn.” 

Aurian can see a faint white glow coming from Shorn’s orange visor and the streams of data crossing the glass. “You should be getting information from Shorn in a few minutes.” 

“We are almost to the bridge,” Shorn adds after Aurian. 

“ _Excellent, that is where the signal originated. Update me when you find the Guardian._ ”

The final door opens to reveal a large observatory that gives them a view of the inky darkness before them. No light reflections, no objects in the distance, just pure dark nothingness. But right in front of them looks like a bundle of the weird vegetation that may have spread into the room at a first glance. But when the room dimly lit up, the duo flinched slightly. It is clearly the individual they were sent to rescue, a Hunter that is suspended in the center of the room by vegetative growth, the darkened visor staring blankly back at them.

“You know I joke that you hunters get the short end of the stick.” Aurian comments at the suspended body in the center of the room. “But damn, this has to be the topper to that.”

Shorn gives a short whistle. “No kidding. This one takes the medal.”

They continue to look at the body and around the room. The plants had taken over the back wall and parts of the ceiling where there isn’t any glass. Even further indicates the spores traveled through the ships ventilation systems. 

“Aurian,” Shorn speaks up not long after a brief silence. “Did Osiris ever say anything about _when_ they received the signal?” 

“A few months ago? He said it was intercepted by one of the Vanguard scouts.” She looks at the hanging body and then at Shorn then at the faint voice of Osiris in her ears, he was saying something, but she doesn't really pay attention to it. Now that they mentioned it- no one really accounted for how long the signal took to reach them, it took a few weeks for them to get Varik’s SOS message at the most. The state of the ship and rust indicated the ship has been abandoned for a very, very long time. “You think otherwise, don’t you?”

“I think he’s been here for a year at least,” Shorn confirms, implying that he’s been _dead_ for that long. They point at the creeping plants around the room. “There is no way the plants would grow that fast in mere months even exposed to the abyss. The state of the ship says for itself.”

Shorn can hear Osiris say something in their ear, and they turn their comms off before pushing away from Aurain, limping closer to the body, letting their helmet run scans on the body for whatever Shorn does with the information. She follows closely, as they get closer to the deceased Guardian, they can see the glint of a rifle suspended by the plants near the floor, Aurian reaches out first, clenching around the wood and steel barrel of the lever-action rifle, and yanks it out with little difficulty than she expected. The rifle is a work of art despite being lost in space for Traveler knows how long, the gun is barely scuffed and fully operational.

Aurian opens her comm to Osiris’ channel to report their findings, “We found him, but he’s been dead for much longer than our original estimate. What do we do with the body?” 

“ _Do nothing, we don’t know if it’s safe to move the body. But he said whoever finds him can get his gun, so take that and return to the War Room. Medical personnel will be waiting for your arrival._ ”

“Copy that.” Aurian turns off her comm once again and turns back to see Shorn staring out the window into the abyss, the rifle slung across their back. For the briefest moment, she can see the air around their body shimmer with a faint red mist like a Nightmares and their armor seemed to distort a little. She blinked and the shimmer was gone and Shorn was already walking back towards her. She shrugged it off as a hallucination caused by the head injury.

“I don’t like the idea of just taking the weapon and leaving his body here to rot.” Shorn says to the body. “I feel like the Darkness is just mocking me for this one.”

Aurian gives them a thinking hum, but hearing that from Shorn is by far strange. “You heard Osiris, leave it until they find a way to remove him from there. And to grab the gun and go.” 

“... in that case, we shouldn’t overstay our visit.” They take one last glance at the dead Guardian and the abyss. Shorn opens her comms one last time. “Osiris, we are returning to the Tower. Get that medical team ready.”


End file.
